Friday 27 May 2011

Elderflower cordial deliciousness for your weekend or garden party

If you have never made your own elderflower cordial, this is the perfect time of year to give it a go and make this deliciously fragrant and exquisite drink- perfect for your weekend or garden party.
Cordial is a syrup-y drink you can dilute with water , fizzy wine or - even better- champagne - and elderflower cordial is one of the best - plus super easy and gorgeously fabuloso to make yourself!

The elder tree thrives practically everywhere and completely boring to look at during most of the year-apart from early summer.
It then covers itself completely with big heads of delicate lacey flowers that have a lovely and tangy scent.
                                                                      Here is a detail.
  To make this lovely drink with some fizz -whether alcoholic or just fizzy water- so you can celebrate the weekend with your friends,you will need the following:

Ingredients:

20 fresh flowerheads of the eldertree ( as above- you will find elder trees in blossom right now  ).
3 sliced lemons
1.2 kg sugar
1.8 litres of boiling water
50 g citric acid.
Note : This last one ( citric acid ) is very hard to get-and is used as a preservative for your cordial - I tried quite a few chemists and had no luck .Citric acid  also exists in citrus fruits ( and in fizzy vitamin C tablets )- so in the end I opted for 4 fizzy vitamin C tablets  !! A very healthy drink !!It works the same way.
 You will also need :
Three or four sterilised glass bottles with screw-tops .( You sterilise them by putting them in the dishwasher and to let it run, or wash them and then dry them in a 150 degrees Centigrade hot oven ).


How to make the cordial :
Pick your elderflowers and put them on a big dish .
                                                       The flowers are really pretty .
Boil the water, then pour it over the sugar in a big bowl, so the sugar dissolves. Put a plate or lid on the bowl and let it cool down a bit  for 15 to 20 minutes or so.
Shake the flowerheads over the sink so that eventual small insects that are on the flowers, fall off.
Take all the stalks off the flowerheads so you have a bowl full of flowers.
Slice your lemons, then take a big pan, and put the lemon slices and the flowers in the bottom and add the cooled down sugarwater .Add the citric acid- in my case 4 tablets of fizzy vitamin C tablets which have citric acid ( this does really work ! ).
                                                                                    
Cover with a lid or plate and let it stand for 24 hours.Then, get you labels ready for your bottles.I made a label which you can print off , which is here below- it will work as a label if you print it off as a photograph in colour on plain paper ..                                      
Take a clean tea-towel and tie it over a big bowl with string. Pour the elderflower-and-lemon  liquid over / in the tea-towel so it acts as a fine sieve and the clear liquid will drip in the bowl underneath. Throw the used flowers and lemon slices away.
To pour the cordial in your bottles without spilling, I can recommend dipping a milk-jug in the big bowl of elderflower cordial and then pour the cordial in there in the bottle. Paste or glue your labels on , put your surplus cordial bottles in the fridge and crack open your first self made elderflower cordial .

           Serve with ice-cubes , fizzy water ( dilute to taste ) and a sprig of mint if you have it handy.                                                                   
                                           
                                                                                    
                                                  Enjoy your own elderflower cordial!
                                                                               
                                                                Happy weekend!
 

I am linking this post to : 
( you will find the link and button at the end of my blog   )

craft Catwalk, Foodie Friday,Inspiration friday, Weekend wrap-up party, Saturday Spotlight,Metamorphosis Monday, Brag Monday, Craft-o-maniac- Monday, Masterpiece Monday,Making the world cuter Monday, Show off your cottage Monday, Made with love Monday.    



13 comments:

Mariette VandenMunckhof-Vedder said...

Dearest Bea,

Don't know HOW you saw my followers as they still don't appear on my side-bar (only the Facebook Page likes...). Yours are not visible either... Weird Blogger!
Your Elderflower Cordial is delicious. Wish we had that many elderflowers. But bad luck with such a drought. I made a few times elderberry-marmelade and I used the small hotel-jars. Very cute. Lots of work but romantic old-time custum I guess and labor of love.
Hope all is well with your two- and four-legged loved ones!

Lots of love,

Mariette

Mariette VandenMunckhof-Vedder said...

Lieve Bea,

Okay, ik zette een button in mijn sidebar van Rosepetals from heaven en voilĂ ; alles werkte weer. Mijn Followers; mijn Recent comments... bij jou nog steeds geen followers in de sidebar hier. Maar laten we hopen dat het snel weer funktioneert.

Liefs,

Mariette

Nena3110 said...

I made this drink long time ago, it is good.
Thank you!

Snap said...

I learn something new everyday! Thank you!!!

Marlis said...

Ooh this looks delish! need to see if we have those trees in texas.. Happy weekend.
xo marlis

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for the recipe & label! I'm so happy to have identified what we have growing in a field next to our property line! I'll have to try this, I quickly googled and found citric acid available from Amazon, but I'm glad to know the vitamin C tables work :-)

Mary

My Interior Life said...

This sounds delicious! Not sure we have elderflower trees in Tennessee, but I recently found an elderflower blossom liqueur (St-Germain) that I love! Just did a post about a French Gimlet which includes that very spirit. You should check it out:
http://myinteriorlife.blogspot.com/2011/05/belly-up-to-bar-guest-post.html

fairyrocks said...

This sounds as good as it looks.
Thanks for the recipe and the entire tutorial, I will never look at those vitamin 'c's the same LOL
Keep smiling and creating

How To said...

Your tablescape photo is gorgeous. :)

The Tablescaper said...

I've never had an elderflower cordial. Your photos are magnificant.

Looking forward to having you be a part of "Where do you keep it all? - Part 2".

- The Tablescaper

At The Picket Fence said...

Hello lovely (modern country) lady! :-) We had trouble opening this link last week and then we finally figured out that it was from you. We just absolutely love this recipe and want you to know that we are going to feature it this week at Inspiration Friday! Come on by tomorrow and check it out!
Vanessa

Anonymous said...

This sounds so amazing! We will definitely have to try it for our next garden party! Thanks so much for the recipe!
xo E + J

Mel010100 said...

I always keep a bottle of Fruit Fresh powder ( usually sold in the section with other canning supplies in the grocery store) in the pantry to use when when making jams...it is mostly citric acid. I have Elderberries growing all along my road and have never made a cordial...this sounds wonderful!